Jodine Mayberry: Is the rebuilding of disaster areas for naught?

Two friends and I went down the shore over the Fourth of July weekend to Cape May.

And on Friday, when it was so freaking hot, we decided to sit in a superbly air-conditioned car and head up to the northern Jersey shore to see the devastation that Hurricane Sandy has wrought.

So we went up to Bay Head where another friend lives year-round and she gave us a tour of Bay Head and the next town down, Mantoloking.

In Bay Head, you can see block after block of large, exquisitely landscaped, multimillion dollar vacation homes perched between the beach and East Avenue, some with swimming pools in their front or backyards. Many of these homes were either completely gone or in need of renovations that will cost as much as a four-year Harvard education.

At one narrow point of land in Mantoloking, we saw a pristine swimming pool sitting in the sun surrounded by sand, but not a single vestige of the house that it once belonged to.

We saw a long line of dunes about 15 feet high all along the shoreline, sculpted not by nature over decades, but by the Army Corps of Engineers over weeks, from sand and remnants of debris washed inland. Do not walk on the sand barefooted, we were warned.

Those people whose seaside homes were left standing really will have to go to the second floor to look out at the ocean, as one complained to Gov. Chris Christie, but too bad, they can put up with dunes or have no house next time.

Bay Head, Mantoloking, Deal, Spring Lake, Point Pleasant -- these are the best-kept secrets of the Jersey shore. These are the places where many wealthy New Yorkers come to play.

The north Jersey shore is a whole other world. Heck, even the terms for summer visitors are different. In the south, they're called "Shoobies," but in the north, they're called "Bennies."

Luckily, as we were driving around, our tour guide passed a neighbor who was striding up and down the sidewalk in front of her house on a cellphone. She instantly invited us in to see workers restoring her entire first floor.

The house is a large, cedar-shingled Victorian that the family lives in year-round, having inherited it from parents who had bought it in the 1950s.

In the backyard was the bay, framed by a beautiful dock set out with chaise lounges, and across the street in the front was a canal, also lined with damaged homes, and just beyond that, the ocean, all in a stretch of about a quarter-mile.

The homeowner, Cathy, who has been living in her mother's basement, was on the phone with Comcast trying to get TV service restored to the house, while a bevy of laborers worked at the reconstruction.

Then, her husband Fred burst through the front door. He had also been on the phone with some agency trying to determine if he and Cathy had met a crucial deadline to apply for federal funding.

"I don't even know if I can afford this," said Fred, gesturing at the workers. All of their property papers had been lost in the storm and had to be painstakingly reconstructed, he explained.

As climate change continues to happen, we will be debating long into the future over whether it is fair to use taxpayer money to rebuild the homes and restore the beaches of people who insist on living on fragile barrier islands.

Alaskan native villages are disappearing, old money Nantucket Island is slowly dissolving into the sea and swanky Malibu's beaches have all but washed away due to storms and erosion.

Sure, we as a nation should help victims, especially those left with nothing, but how much help should we give? Should we rebuild towns destroyed again and again in Tornado Alley?

How about saving New Orleans, Miami and New York City, all threatened by rising sea levels.

Should we compensate homeowners who build and rebuild in the arid mountains of California, Arizona and Colorado where forest fires have raged for millennia?

Even if we could, should we try to hold off the inevitable for a few more years and a few more storms, or should we draw a line in the sand?